and then a long line to the self along an area, and all place where they bury people. of course that is seminary ridge on the other side, the confederates -- and interestingly enough, throughout american history, red markers represent the confederates and blew the federates. the confederates ended up on all long rays that went down in this way with about a mile apart over here was a place where they trained people to be preachers. that, of course, is a cemetery rage. so generations of sixth graders have been seminary rage over here, cemetery ridge year. they have been confused by this. it is a cemetery where the union and seminary where the confederates. about the middle of the second day of the battle, the union

general noticed there was a small hill down at the bottom of the entire line of the union troops that was unoccupied by either side. he also immediately realized this could be the most important piece of property in the entire battle field because it had an elevation that looked up the entire federal line and anchored the federal lion. the union general grab the nearest officer and said, we have to occupy that hill immediately. the fellow's name was strong vincent, the officer from new york. and he grabbed two of the regiments, new york and pennsylvania and then me and the 20th man regiment. they went to the top of the sale. joshua lawrence chamberlain had only been the colonel for about a month. he was in charge of 358 men. vincent took him to the extreme left flank of the union army, this little hill which is called

little round top. we had pennsylvania, new york, and made. vincent took joshua lawrence chamberlain to this point. here were his orders. this is the extreme left flank of the entire union army. you are to hold this ground at all hazards. at all hazards. that means to the death. almost immediately upon getting to the top of the hill, up came the 15th alabama, one of the crack regiments in lee's army. up the hill to try to dislodge the 20th main. now, if you have not been to gettysburg, little round top gun if god was going to build a fortress it would look like little round top. steep, rocky, with lots of places to be behind. indeed, chamberlain took maximum advantage of that.

as the charge came they were able to repel it. a half hour later or so the alabamas came again. they were pushed back. they came again and were pushed back. and each time they got closer and closer to the top of hill, because of the nature of guns in the civil war, a good shooter in the civil war, a good handler of a rifle could get off four shots per minute. i want you to think of yourself at the top of that hill with the 15th alabama coming up. you take a mature rifle and shoot. bam. you are now prepared to shoot the second time. that sounded like an eternity, 15 seconds. that was how long it would take

to reload and get another shot. that is why in this situation the charge came closer and closer. by the third and fourth charge it became hand-to-hand combat. i should say, by the way, as i mentioned to my joshua lawrence chamberlain was not a soldier by trade but a professor at a little college. he spoke to an languages in 1856. he had a deep vision for the meaning of america and a deep concern about the issue of slavery. he was a student in the early 1850's, young professor's wife was writing a book. he sat in the living room of this professor and listened to her read excerpts from this book the book turned out to probably be the most influential book ever published in america. it was called uncle tom's cabin. it described for people in the country the evils of slavery. indeed, when abraham lincoln met harriet beecher stowe and shook

her hand he said, shaking the hand that started the civil war because it lit the fuse that led to the pressure that ultimately led to the abolition of slavery. in any case, for and then five charges, each time the 15th alabama was riposte. but then they were gathering at the bottom of the hill for the final assault late in the day, a hot afternoon, july 2nd, 1863. the problem was, his men were out of ammunition. they had each been issued 60 cartridges. they had all been fired during those five assaults. he then has a choice to make as a leader. he had three options. one was to retreat, which is a perfectly honorable thing to do the military situation, but his orders were to hold the ground at all hazards, at all hazards because if he had not commenced the confederates had gotten

around little round top, the entire rear of the union army was exposed. his other option was to stand and fight until overwhelmed. that would not have worked very well because it would have only delayed in for a few minutes. instead, he chose an extraordinary option that was very unusual, even at the time, and he uttered one word, and it was bayonets. they're is a dispute in history whether he also said charge and what his actual order was, but everybody agrees that he uttered the word bayonets, and his soldiers knew what that meant. down the hill into the face of the final confederate charge came 200 crazy guys from maine. the 15th alabama, for the first and only time in the civil war, was so shocked by this technique that they turned and ran. and the 200 boys from maine --

and i say 200 because at the beginning of this action there were over 300. they lost 100 casualties in death. captured four or 500 confederates with no bullets in their guns. chamberlain tried to call his men back. they said, hell, no, general. we are on our way to richmond. i tell the story because it is one of extraordinary bravery. by the way, he received the congressional medal -- medal of honor for his bravery and creativity afternoon on that little hill in pennsylvania. but i tell the story because it is a story of our country, and it is the story of how a single person's actions and bravery can have enormous impact. historians argue about whether this was really the key turning point. was there something else, some other regiment at another place, but an argument can be made at this college professor from maine to save the united states.

the defining moment for our country was that hot afternoon in pennsylvania july 2nd, 1863. i believe it is one of the great stories of american history and, in fact, the story of chamberlain little round top is taught in army manuals to this day as a story of creativity, perseverance, courage and of devotion to god and country. mr. president, i hope all americans will think about these moments and thousands more like them as we celebrate not only the birth of our country next week, but also the rebirth of our country in the three days prior to july 4th. thank you. i yield the floor. >> the 150th anniversary of the battle of gettysburg. live coverage sunday at 930 eastern with historians throughout the day,.

>> next on c-span2, the discussions from the new york ideas festival on online college education, the future of business start-ups, and women in wall street financial firms. >> i was also looking for things that would completely pessimistic. i think we could have won without patent, lemay, but i do not think -- you take away themistocles to burned at athens

and two-thirds occupied. the greece would have thought. without belisarius, the emperor justinian would not have recovered much of the western part of the byzantine roman empire. i don't think there was a union general alive who could have taken atlanta at the cost that we took it, very small cost compared to what was going on. i don't know anybody who could have done what matthew ridgway -- and i wish i could say that there were american generals that could have done what patraeus did. >> military historian talks about five generals that he says singlehandedly reverse the direction of the war to their countries favor. saturday at 10:00 p.m. eastern, part of book tv this weekend on c-span2. >> at this discussion from the new york ideas festival, panelists discuss online education and the increasing involvement of brick and mortar colleges. in new york ideas festival was organized by "atlantic" magazine

and the aspen institute. this was 20 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> thank you all very much. these are two of my heroes. let's give them a round of applause. [applause] and now, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at mit. he created a great course they're called circuits. and then he put the course of line and body year-and-a-half ago. and the theory that once you have done that you should be in charge of having everybody put things on line, he is in charge of the mit harvard consortium, one of the three major, whenever it is. multiple. master. thank you. dave is one of the -- is the

co-founder along with cap who is the best multiple school operator in the country. i know this very well, being from new orleans. after the storm we tried to reinvent the school system and have it be -- and bring in competing school operators. is with scale success. so let me start. after that i think we have the single biggest one that i can think about is sliding back --

blackboards, but that's about it. you really haven't had much in the wave of innovation. quality has not changed. access has been a real problem. i just saw this picture in one of the bloomberg articles about a teacher conducting a class under culverts in india with students running around, and he was using this side wall of the culver as a blackboard. the real challenge was access to high-quality education for the students around the world. and i think massive open online courses. an online learning in general, one dramatically increase the quality of education. second, it can dramatically increase access to education as well in one fell swoop. i think there is an opportunity for all of this year. >> do you have to blend it into a classroom model? >> there are two ways of doing it. one is a massive open online

course for anyone around the world can be a participant completely online. that is already very good quality. what we can do one campuses is one better. we can do what is called blended learning, also called of with classroom where students can watch the videos and interactive exercise is an online virtual labs in their own norms and kent come to class and there have in person interaction with the instructor. they could collaborate amongst each other and do some in-person labs. the splendid model has been very successful. as an example, they offered the blended class at san jose state university in silicon valley last fall. and the results were very encouraging. traditionally at course was on campus, had a 41 percent dropout rate, and with the blended class, the results improved to 9% dropout rate.

let's not take this to the bank, but this is very encouraging. >> but, let me take san jose state. if i have read this. it may or may not be true. san jose state last week, the philosophy department professors refused to take michael's justice course as part of the curriculum and refuse to help teach it because they thought it would -- they made the english department try to teach it. to use the massive resistance like that at places like san jose state? >> the way i look at it is that these on-line courses are a new tool for instructors. and i think they provide greater value to the learner. at think we should keep our eye on students around the world and the quality of education. and so these new on-line courses , the next generation textbook in the text book is out there.

if you are an instructor somewhere at a university or school, it is completely your choice. if you want you can use a text book. we do it all day long, or you can use a chapter or write your own textbook or don't use a text book. it's completely of to you. we don't ask the author, you should not be writing a book. i think they should, and people are free to use them any way that they like. >> but do you think that this will help equalize the place like san jose state court recce vick community college with harvard or berkeley or do you think that this will brighten the divine? >> i would like to think of online learning as a rising tide that is going to improve education for students in all universities, for students that don't go to universities. and that think the way this will do that is a small university, help take india. a small university. engineering colleges.

they have a bachelor's, people with bachelor's degrees that teach courses because they don't have enough teachers. so imagine you are getting a degree. you don't get a great education. imagine if they could license a textbook course or an online course from berkeley. a course on software as a service and teaching in that local campus. some of the students have access to a great course. you tell me, does that bring that university in berkeley closer together or take them for their part? if i was a student, the small town in india. [laughter] a small town. it's a small town of the arabian sea coast. and so there is, if i am a student and i have a chance to go to my neighbor a university where i can take the berkeley intelligence class or go across

the indian ocean, the atlantic and go do, you know, the university in the u.s. where do you think i will go? so you tell me, close together or for their part? >> among other things a teacher, in houston if the remember correctly and then started in the south bronx before he even created the zero academy empire. as a teacher, how do you see these types of tools changing the classroom? >> so, thank you. hi, everybody. good seeing everybody. so, we are excited. i think the promises for teachers is that you now have the ability or you will have the ability to really differentiate based upon the needs of each kit you have. and so the challenge when you have 25, 30 kids in a class is how do you meet each kid where they are and then a group them into small groups by needs.

an online learning, you know, provides a road map for the solution in the hands of a great teacher. and i think, you know, what i see, the promises how it affects teachers entering the profession so that right now you're having to reach everyone who has been teaching five, ten, 15 years, but for everyone who is starting , the analogy of a textbook is a good one. it is a tool. they should be expected to figure out how to use it well. >> how many of your teachers in academies as you integrate them into the curriculum -- let me take one example everyone would know to my take an academy video and say, let me use that to explain this concept of algebra as opposed to trying to teach it on a blackboard. >> so today we have 125 schools serving over 41,000 kids in 20

states and the district of columbia. we have about 3,000 teachers working across elementary, middle, and high, and at each level there are really different kind of availability right now. if you take a look, it is really throughout almost all of our schools and teachers are experimenting and using material in different ways. so if you went to virtually any of our middle schools you will see teachers using the academy with some group or collection of individuals and individual students. the challenge, which i think is hard. based upon just peoples of selecting to come to new york ideas festival run by "atlantic," i'm going to assume its people who pretty much like to yearn -- learn. the challenge for groups like this, if i were to say, how many people like to learn, how many people would raise that hand? the vast majority of the world

is not like you. [laughter] so as teachers -- and that mean that including myself up until probably 18. so as teacher is our challenge is how do you reach and inspire everybody? and right now what exists on line -- that i signed on to teach for next year. what right now exists is a better way of delivering content to. that works for folks like his audience to receive content and can make use of it. college graduation rates in this country a 32 percent across all demographic groups for a variety of reasons. you can point to issues of socioeconomics of the what you don't talk about is the actual mechanics of learning as fundamentally broken across all demographic groups. and so until we deal with the mechanics of learning, what i think you will see is the on-line potential will better

serve folks who learn in that way. >> when you talk about that way as sort of a content delivery system, the next way that something might amplify all wireless generation which i went out and got involved with, which is the way of creating a whole new curriculum that has gained general playing and assessment tools for the teacher, is this something that you think is the next level? >> i think everybody -- what everyone is trying to teach on-line, it is trying to figure out how you -- there is a mixture of guided practice an independent practice that is absolutely essential for

take to cliches and make him i believe in it into play, and the thing that is the promise. >> how do you involve to be both guided and independent rather than just lectures that sort of a broken up and we watch?

>> i think the way to think about this is to recreate. popular institutions to. and these are complete courses that start with videos and interactive exercises come on line laboratories, assessments, exams, discussions. and at the end they give a certificate. and they will get a certificate. they are distinguished. these are complete courses. as a student could learn from a textbook completely by themselves, if i am in some remote corner of china and i could take the textbook and completely learn a subject from the textbook. however, if i went to a high-school or university and had a great teacher who would mentor me along with that book i would imagine that the learning experience would be better

because now there is the imprint and the in person version. the on line with the in person. as an example, a number of bicycles around the country have began using courses. massachusetts. a dozen students, offering a number of courses on their campus. a number of students who have mastered courses. it won a richer set of courses and don't have the teachers to teach them. so these students are taking these courses, some of them have a mentor on site and some don't. they are getting high-school credit for those courses. and number of bicycles are talking about doing the same thing. >> our eyes schools are having that execs and experience. it can significantly provide opportunity beyond the doors of

any one particular school. >> it can provide opportunities but can it also exacerbates the divide between privilege and poor kids and if so out? >> i think on one hand you can take the argument that it will close the divide because it democratizes access. on the other hand, you could take the argument that it increases the divide because of who actually has access, who really has access to use the tools and technology. i think there is a real question. >> you have seen it. you have academies. some of those kids need more than just to struggle on their own to get out. >> we are combining many variables. i do think when you look at the

kids we serve, not everybody -- people used to talk about the digital mind. they don't really anymore. not everyone of our kids, the vast majority do not have individual computers at home or tablets at home. in this respect or even individual computers at school. in this respect while the promise and potential is that it could affect all corners of the world of america, there are issues there. and so i do think schools like andover where there are one on one computers, you have an advantage over schools like ours where there is not. will everyone have one on one computers in the near future? >> internet access at home. >> almost everyone at this point has internet access. that i think has almost become

ubiquitous. reliable and up to speed and whether or not is available to them individually is a different story. >> i agree with all that has been said, but with the right level of investments and the right policies i think this can really narrow the gap and really narrow the divide and really democratize education. the reason i say that is -- i give an example. some of the country's lack talking about investing in creating a thousand new brick and mortar colleges and universities. there thinking ahead, investing in tablets. massive and stretched -- infrastructure in terms of internet access with could be a much cheaper way to really access all of this content streaming down view without creating more brick and mortar structures. and this is happening. in india, for example, many of

you have probably heard of this new template. it is $40 that the government has invested that is being made available to kids all over the world. i think because of this new content being available in online content, i would really encourage nations and the world bank and other policymakers to think about saying, what we should be investing in.

redefine how you think about physical space but it doesn't exist yes. now, every science fiction movie basically presents this version where it isn't necessary. we haven't seen it yet. and so for the next generation, particularly for the kids we work with at kipp, our country needs to make having a great principal in every school and a great teacher in every classroom as big a priority if not more than having a tablet in every child's hand. >> i think what the whole movement can do is bring in great people into the teaching profession.

>> what books and online technology have done is drop education to the forefront of the public. you're obviously listening to a panel on education. when is the last time you did that? when is the last time you had time for some of the top newspapers and bloggers writing about education? this has become exciting, and when it's exciting, great people will come into the profession i think whether the profession changes or not, we'll get a lot more great teachers and i do believe that great teachers and content will improve the learning experience. >> the one caution with that is, particularly in public schools, and particularly in k-12, the great teaching experience depends -- there's this old slogan, people don't leave jobs, they leave managers. and so this idea that we need to create communities of teachers with principals and prioritize

that, it has to be coupled with any vision of how technology plays. there's a k-12 version and higher ed version that is not fullly united. >> this is an amazing time in the transformation of education thanks to at the two of you. thank you. >> thank you. [applause] >> up next, how the business world is changing, panelist including professional sports team owner and ceo crowe of coupon and the crowes of sip car and beta works. this is 20 minutes.

>> hi. we have -- going to be a slightly defendant strategy of interviewing. this will be a little bit like speed date organize overlapping diagrams, depending our are how you like your metaphors. we're going to talk to three innovators. i'll talk to one of them alone and then bring up another one ask then kick this one off the stage and then talk to the second one for a bit and then bring number three on, talk to them for a while, kick number two off and finish the discussion with number three. so we'll all be exhausted in 30 minutes and ready for lunch. it should be fun. let's good. >> the talk is starting. so, i think the first question that i need to ask is, what exactly is beta work? a d.c. firm? incubator, startup factory? >> i think about dataworks and what i'm trying to build is a

media company for the century. we're a company, not a fund. we do three things. we build stuff. from the ground up. we build stuff. we build companies, and we run them and operate them. and second thing is we buy things. so we have made a venture acquisitions in our history. all putty much -- sort of for several million dollars and the biggest one is five hundred thousand so the small acquisitions we work and do corporate development, and the third thing we do is we invest and we invest in 72 companies over the five years we have been in in existence. betaworks is a -- i'm an entrepreneur. build companies, and sell them. i wanted a platform to do that. so there's ten people in

betaworks and those people have incredible depth of experience in building companies with do it in a parallel fashion. we do them in parallel. >> name some of the companies some people might know. i know at least three. >> so we certainly got on people's map in the early days because we were involved, as initially investor and then helped run a company that twitter acquired and became the search injury. then we built a company which does short things pretty much on the internet now. and shortly is just easier to navigate in the social world. we built an at littics company and data companies. we then fast forward, and last year we acquire evidence dig. which was a big acquisition for half a million dollars, and dig was a high-flyer, wonderful

company, and maybe flew a little too high, funded too much, and came -- we saw his opportunity to acquire it and turn it around. so we bought it and then six weeks we relaunched it. and then we have recently, to wokes ago we announced the acquisition of a paper, which is another reading service, and we're building this ecosystem around reading, curation, data, media. that includes everything from newspaper to dig to other thing that are coming. >> you have something like an internet toolbox in -- that your company owns. i use a lot of them, whether to read tweets, read longer pieces, check traffic to my site. these are somewhat different companies. how do you choose what company to invest in, what company to build? what are the most important

variables from the entrepreneur to the company. >> we're forced with serial idea people, and so we -- we don't -- a lot of people say, how did you come one these ideas? we are users. we're people who use all this stuff. and so then we say, you know, in the this case of bit leaf we wanted to use the established option of some tiny url, wonderful service. and it wasn't scary. and had no interest in building something that would scare, so we thought it was shorter, and we thought the brand -- part of this is building but outbuilding a business. so we're product people. first and foremost. the second thing is, we run

betaworks like a studio so we have people building things all the time. we launched last week because we have become fascinated with engagement. i'm generally fascinated with what are the habits people form? how can we create something which people want to come back to every day? and become part of their lives and they have an emotional attachment to so games of higher -- so we launched, and we have -- we're number two in the app store now, and we have about a million users on it, which is remarkable. so you seek the engage; how quickly it can happen. >> you build things that are not just people wants but things you want, and one of the things you want and people in this room also want is a replacement for google reader which has been

killed unceremoniously and people are upset. what are you doing to fill that void? >> we talked about that a little bit and i'm not going to say much more than what we have said publicly, is google came out earlier than we expected but we understood they were going to slow off and -- it's -- reader product is very important. a lot of writers use it and people who are real news -- people who follow tracks of news, use it, and google has sort of marginally invested in it over the last few years and yet google's presence in the market wiped away all the competition because nobody would fund anything as an alternative, and google was the de facto yet thaw weren't funding it and growing it. so it's unfortunate that they're shutting it down. but i think it's actually in the long run a good thing because it

will make the market more competitive. it was little skewed and nobody was innovating in the space. so i think some innovations needed that. but we jumped in and said wear going to launch google reader before they shut google reader down. >> this is the part of the interview becomes like speed dating. can we have scott griffin? there he is. >> scott's company was acquired by avis. the deal closed in march, so he would like me to tell you he is looking for a job. >> thank you my wife thanks you. >> you built things that aren't just -- they're truly possible. people like to talk about them. i do want to ask, with you, maybe you think about how you use the enter met -- by net and -- internet and fill in holes. what variables did you look for

when you were thinking about starting a car-sharing company. >> the question is, how do we do that? >> right. what's going through your head when you're reading the internet and thinking, there's a part of this puzzle that is missing. i want to -- >> i see the enter northwest as a -- i mean the internet and the web we are building is this new, emerging platform which started off in a centric way, just pages and all the metaphors were about reading, structured around reading but you could -- there's a right aspect to it which was being somewhat delate in its evolution. coupled with that is mobile and tablets and it's becoming a lot more personal and becoming something that we're interacting with all the time, carrying it around with us. it's gathering data about our movements. so what we do at betaworks, we have this process where we start

here, we build something, and then we say, instead of have adding a new feature to something, we ask course are uses can we make that into distinct snuck,. >> my belief is that users have a set of products they use every day, and they want to be able to move the data between those products. they want those products to work together, and so that photos are not on one product and annotations are not locked in one box, so we try to create this ecosystem of products that people use every day. >> right. scott? >> so, i i've been in transportation for a lot of my life. i started my career at the boeing company and went into more of the star bureaucrat -- starbuck world.

we saul the intersection of the information data technology the automobile and try to look out, what's going to happen, as it evolved over time. at the end of that rainbow is probably google's vision for driverless cars or other things coming still, maybe ten years out, even beyond thatment zip car is the first stage of that now. we're seeing goingle and its growth, growing extraordinarily quickly. we're seeing companies like, list, in san francisco, where you can take your personal vehicle and turn it into an uber-car and start a business on your own using apps. when we started the company at zip car in our first few years we were hundred% can be company. over the last three and a half, four years, we have gone from 98% of our interaction on the web to about 70 plus% of our interactions are now on a smartphone or app. so we have innovid ourselveses. the think we're at the most interesting juncture transportation that is probably as important as the model t.

the model t and transportation were seeing so many things happen now. and it's all the intersection of technology and cars and transportation. >> that's great. i was supposed to kick you off but doesn't make any sense for you to leave because you -- i'm going to invite ted, and the co-ceo of groupon. [applause] >> i'm calling an audible. you know, at revolution growth. >> you invested in zip car and you have a lot of companies -- >> very happy investment. >> you look at ideas that seem to me to tap into this idea of sharing economy, the idea that the internet pulls down barriers and lets people see what assets everybody has. and share those assets rather than havening an ownership economy you have a sharing

economy. why was this this right moment for car share? whyol the '7s so and 80 versus for car sharing. >> a lot of it was generational. the big winds for zip car, flex car, was actually changing the way insurance worked and allowing students to be able to get benefits and it grew up around campuses, and you really became a local phenomenon, and we have always looked at it, way back in the url days, acquire inquired john's company, one of the first local commerce companies called total new york, and john was our -- at aol was big segments of markets-not internet enabled technology creation to make money, but to find big categories waiting to be transformed like -- you couldn't do zip car without

mobile, without your iphone being able to start the car and locate the car and mapping and all these applications we take for grabbed. we were able taplash up and create a-able to mash up and create a new category. >> having the consumer interaction, but how we ran zip car was really a virtual company. we really are a technology company, a branding company, and a logistics management company. we had very low head count. we did not clean the cars officers. we don't jockey the cars around. we use third parties. we even use people from task rabbit who are self-employed now to help do things at the business. so our company was focusing on using technology on the backed end as much as the front end, and that itself wasn't possible until we had the internet and the mobile phones and smart finances now. our fleet services are run

through smartphone apps. >> the first is you can see how zip car and other businesses ted has built, revolution money and others, have -- are completely ripping out all of the infrastructure, these industrial infrastructure, behind what -- how we used to do things, and the second thing is that data is making all of these objects, physical objects connected. so zip cars aren't quite connected but when you woke up it's connected to you. so one hop away is zip car connecting and they will, and so it's about, as all this -- as the world, the physical world, becomes part of the network, i think we're radically redefining

the way economics, and the way we're building companies. >> never been a better time be an entrepreneur because of that. john mentioned revolution money, which we sold to american express. and it was positioned originally -- paypal meets american suppress and have to build a private network like aol, and all the associations and master card and visa we were able to use the internet and put it on the cloud. kept the cost down and get skilled very, very quickly and now it's a big part of american express, powers a lot of their prepaid card business and it's the fulcrum of an enterprise growth business, which they just launched a jv with wal-mart called blue bird which is aimed at an integrated program to get the unhappily banked online and

not have to pay the high fees. so great acquisitions, great business, but all empowered by the web and the cloud. >> the thing find interesting is if you just look at who is adopting these technologies and business models first, it's pretty much all the millenial generation, the earliest adopters and it's a phenomenal shift in behavior knowles underemployed generation in many generations so they're doing the math, they're very smart consumers. they're not nearly as brand associated as their previous generations. and they're much more open-mined to sharing business models, sharing business models, hack sirs versus ownership has become their mantra, whether it's addressed from the runway, car from zip car or a carom uber-or groupon, they're coming getting together. >> the coincidence of the spread

of mobile technology and the recession, think, created a hay day for the sharing economy in a way that makes someone wonder whether the good times can keep rolling. so it makes sense for young people, who don't have much money to buy a car, to share a car, and makes sense for young people who want a ped -- pedicure but can't afford the full price, gift it from groupon but we have seen from groupon's experience in the last few years and the future, it's possible that a generation that gets more and more money might turn airplane from the sharing economy. so i guess it's a twin question, and unfortunately it's our last question as well. with groupon, in 2011, called just the fastest growing company in the world in 2012, very different story. take us through what happened and whether macroeconomic conditions -- a minute and 55 seconds. half of that because the other question is for scott. so talk about how you see positioning zip car in a growing

economy. >> your speed date is over. >> have to be circumspect. groupon is a good prophecy for young people that are living their life in a very mobile setting. our mobile business has been growing dramatically. i can see a day where the majorities of our businesses is real-time and being generated through mobile devices. it's also a global phenomenon. not just a u.s. phenomenon. we're in 700 cities around the world, and the business has morphed from being a daily deal business that's delivered via e-mail, though that's a very strong business. we have 250 million names in our database -- to being a curatessed commerce business where deals exist on the web.

and we did $5 billion in top will be last -- in topline last year so the fourth year of business it is a phenomenon. our goal is just to manage its and have more focus to make sure that weirdlying on what the forecasts -- so that we're delivering on the forecasts. i'm very proud of the benefits we deliver to merchants and consumers. >> scott, 15 seconds, feel free to take -- two minutes. >> your question is, where do we think we're going with our business? i really miss to the earnings, we're thinking the same way we have been. we're listening to the consumer, polling every day and every week, what is the consumer looking for. they're looking for convenience, we have a very strong value

proposition on the convenience dim expense how we save money for people and we have to keep push ought to the efficient frontier with those and we have already started to put cars in airport as part of the avis budget group. we immediately put cars in airports so if you're traveling you can continued to use our brand and we're doing that in an environment that feels very much like zip car does in cities. we're going to have flexibility to pick up and drop off and things that with avis budget group again in a low cost structure because of them, that we'll continue to do and we're investing in the technology. a whole new platform in the car in 12 months and a lot of interaction with the customer. >> i see a lot of those around car sharing is like groupon. if you own a car in a city, it's not just the cost of the car and the maintenance but the parking and insurance, it is a noneconomic value to an individual. so, if you can share the ownership in that car and have

access to all of those cars, a very compelling consumer proposition. that's why zip car was so successful and grew so quickly. >> thank you all. [applause] >> now a look at women working in wall street financial firms. includes a form banking of america executive and the founder of a personal finance web site. it's 25 minutes. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> the director of the center and on behalf of the caq we are thrilled be a supporting underwriter again of new york ideas. the caq is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that serves investors, public company audit fors and the capital markets and it is my distinct honor to introduce our next panel, the girls, women in wall street. our panelists are uniquely qualified to talk about two issues near and dear do my heart, confidence in the capital markets and advancing opportunities for women in position office corporate leadership. although more women earn advance degrees in the united states than men do, and roughly an equal number of women and men represent our work force, few women have everyday positions of corporate leadership, in the hallowed halls of wall street. facebook coo, sheryl sandberg,

has returned the issue of why this is to the front page of the business section. sandberg and others have claimed that to break down the glass ceiling women must advocate more fiercely for their own advancement. our next panelists, sally and alexa have learned this lesson as evidenced by their many career successes. sally, the former president of wealth and investment management for bank of america is currently an industry commenter focusing on her passions, regulatory reform, the analysis of big banks, and women in business. sally was the first president of global wealth and investment management as bank of america, a new division that was launched after bank of america's acquisition of merrill lynch. although working in the need aftermath of the financial

cries, sally led that unit to a profit. sally previously serve as ceo of city global wealth investment management, ceo of citigroup, and chairman and ceo of sanford bernstein. she began her career as a research analyst covering financial services, and role in which she was consistently named first in her field by institutional investor and called the last honest -- >> alexa is the founder and ceo of learn vest which she launched in 2009 to provide tools to help will be more financially savvy. learn vest has since offered financial planning advice to empower people everywhere, men and women to take control of their personal finances. alexa has been selected as young global leader by the world economic forum, featured as one

of the youngest entrepreneurs by age 30, and named to the ernst and young entrepreneurial class in 2011. we're hawky to hear from two women who truly are stars. please welcome sally, alexa, and the moderator, a star. thank you. [applause] >> how are you doing some enjoying the day? only just beginning. boys club, girls club. $3.1 billion for the bank of america and they fired you. >> you got it, in. >> i think david bradley, our chairman, may be interested in talking to you. >> i think it was more exciting to hear myself described as a

girl. i don't knoll why. >> i didn't pick the headlines. in any case we are their talk about a number of things. we have such an open arena that we can discuss. women in finance, we can discuss things like sheryl's book in which she goes through to some degree the sociology and the architecture of constraint for women today, the atlantic also ran the most read cover article in our history by an louise slatter, why women still can't have it and all i have been in a room with her where women will say this is their life story and others say this person is disconnected. sally, where in the why women still can't have it all line do you see yourself? >> well, if there were one answer to success for women in

business, we're not so dumb. we already all would have solved it. we all understand and see the research which is that nothing bad happens when women in position office power. in fact only good things happen. be it in positions of power in countries or in businesses, higher returns, better stockholder returns, bet lower volatility, less risk. >> why did that scare your ceo so much? >> let's leave that aside. the macro issue, one of the challenges is we look for and have this amazing, robust, energetic and emotional national debate. there are lots of definitions of success, particularly for women, and for a woman a definition can be i want to be the ceo of a

multinational. for another it would be i want to have a fulfilling career and spend time with kids and the other, i want to start up a company. not one path and not one answer, and i think we need to -- smart, smart companies will increasingly embrace the fact there is not one answer and really work to not only workwoman through the different roads to seniority and also recognize there are women and males like to have flexibility without shame and carve their own path. >> alexa's histories amazing. i want to ask one highly substantive question on the world of finance and where that's may become important. you have been a very, very big gity texas of the underregulation of the banking industry, and back intoing in

areas, look at the disparates between regulation, internationally and what is happening here, and i get the sense from reading this you keep talking about arenas that big bankers don't want to talk about, because it may be where they see profit or regulators not looking. can understand why you make people in some degreer in voice. is it the oiled boys networks that remain large any in place that are inhibiting a healthier banking system? so, turn it around, is -- the faults of the bubbles, the fragility in the system in part related to a nepotism, if you will, between men? >> the way you introduced the topic, we could talk about this for hours and hours and days dad days. i would observe in my entire time in financial services i never heard a clients called a

pup met. never was in a meeting that said we're going to rip people off, or this subprime thing, we're going to ride this and then we're going to -- that never happened. out all. what it did observe, which is an important missed concept, is you had a lot of people who grew up together, breathing the same air, talking the same way, thinking the same way. >> you grew up with stephen colebet. >> i did. he dated mid cousin and i thought, what were you thinking to break up with stephen colbert. >> you helped fundraise for his sister. >> i did. one of the -- my background, research analyst in business, and one of the things as a research analyst you learn, facts can be very subtle things and you need to look at them, accept them, and speak the truth about them, which i did when i

was inside the banks and outside the banks, but a real challenge we have in the industry today is whether it's regulated or senior executives or media, it's the same people having the same conversations and somehow hoping there will be a different outcome there may be, and the regulation is very important. the most important of which is not the details of it, but do the banks have enough capital? do the banks have enough capital? do you know that today we're looking for and guiding towards a minimum of 3% equity to assets for some of the banks but let's call it on average 8%. at the beginning of the 20th 20th century it was 20 to 30% and 100 years ago, 50%. what is the right amount of capital for these banks to have? to me that's the big picture important issue because accidents are going to happen and when accidents happen, a big

capital cushion. >> alexa, a real innovate for in -- started a financial services firm, if i understand correctly, mostly for women or. the 99%. you're the 99% superstar. >> she is 0-point -- [inaudible] >> trading derivatives so i have lots of thoughts on. that. today is actually one of the very few cases that in the kin triyou can get unbuys readied information.

so sign up for free and use our tools or pay a small fee lime a gym membership and get access to a financial planner who will help guide us and started it because i never learned a single thing about personal finance in school. yet we make about six to ten money decisions every day. so i was extremely passionate about imare empowering modifies. i had a wonderful education. and this is a really big problem and lehman brothers is going under and seeing the scenes of unemployment, and million office people having money problems, people overleveraging credit cards and buying homes and i said this is the right time. so we got $25 million between myself and two partners and headquarters in new york. >> how many people in your

network? >> our company has 80 fulltime employees. we added three yesterday. >> how many people do you service. >> we're servicing hundreds of thousands of people, customers are growing ranched rapidly, agency 5,000 a day. and making planning available to the masses and not having a plan is bad. >> if you google sally clark, you read that she was considered to be one of the most ruthless and hobbits an -- honest analysts in the business and that propelled you not really up the ladder. you were brought in, in a very unusual way, sally, into the business based on the research and whatnot. the question is, how do women make it in this profession the other is on broad financial literacy.

you look at what happened in large banking institutions and i looked at the regulatory laxness or dereliction with large banking was this kind of structural corruption and these are the big players, and and nor irene -- in your arena you're dealing with people whiff financial planning challenges. women are more trustable and/or defining something that will now 15 years from now say, wow, really a amazing in terms of changing the game when it came to trusting that kind of information. i think a lot of people don't trust what they hear and read out there. >> i think it's simple. when you go to the doctor, you never get treated with -- they take care of you. the financial state should be the exact same way you should be able to show up and somebody is earning huge commissions or sellling annuity and taking a cut on the back end and not being honest. so it's not men or women. it's structural hill our

planners are set up to make now to give you advice. the financial world make money and people with lots of money and make money to sell products to those people and don't learn about money in school across the country. people are really ill equipped to walk into those conversations. that's why the trust barrier is so high. you know you don't know that much. >> did you in part start your company because you didn't want to go through the ladder climbing in a large firm, and sally, i want to ask you, you didn't really climb the ladder, either. you came in as kind of a god from atlantis. >> god, -- godess. >> figure ought my career aft 24 it was not that way at all. i was extraordinarily passionate

about the problem and it seemed like it wasn't a rocket science difference idea. everybody should have access to trusted advice when you're not selling them anything, as simple as that, and so i think we're on a path to be successful but i wake up every morning thinking there's a lot more to do so i have the -- >> sally, how do you feel about your advancement and not only yours but looking at other women in the financial sector, neither one of your are traditional in the way guys go up the ladder inside a financial services firm. >> what i can say with almost absolute certainty that if i had started in a really big job was running smith veteraney and started at the bottom i never would have method the top, one, because -- this is sort of the old wall street -- is that the

interviewing process you get a questionnaire from the marine corps, and in order to then -- sow you had to make it in. women financial advisers ten to be very successful but more slowly than men financialed a sizes are size jurors the industry kicks them out before their successful because they're forming deep relationships and then in order to be successful in the way the business works is to make your first promotion, the number four manager in a big branch, new york or cincinnati or whatever. then you go to be the number one manager in a really small branch. then the number one manager in a medium side branch and then, law blah, and so i'm sure there are lots of wonderful husbands out there, like any number of wonderful wives, but my husband isn't one of those. nor would my children ever stand

for that. so so that path just -- let's call a spade a spade. we have not seen -- the only woman at the top was a single woman who had made those types of sacrifices. the challenge about changing that is when you're making billions of dollars, we can all read the books about creative disruption, changing, but i'll tell you, having run larger companies, when you make a boatload of money, you can put it off until next week or the week after. and that's why i love -- les and i will not completely agree on financial advisers because i think there's a lot of enormousry terrific ones out there i think the whole industry should meet a fiduciary standard so the whole industry is raised up and i'm hopeful we'll see action out of the regulators for that. what i love seeing are these young women -- seems to be a break somewhere in the mid-30s

where in just a sense of this entrepreneurialism and open, open environment, and i'm just -- i really enjoyed in the past year spending time with alex and her cohort of young women entrepreneurs. i learn more in the past year from these guys than i learned when i was at bank of america. phenomenal what these young people and ladies are accomplishing. >> when you're sitting in a large back, and citi, and it's just emotorhome -- enormous, the theme is innovation and disruption -- does the bank have ways of thinking about innovates organize is it essentially protecting access? do you something -- i see bloggers come along, first disregarded, then ripped off and then bought by large media companies, and to some degree -- is that how -- large institutions.

>> it'sen excellent question. i would put forth so that we can stay in the -- most over the innovation occurred in financial instance constitutions through the past cycle, the inconstitutional trading industries, the ceo squares, et cetera, were increased risk, not innovation. there was rapid complexity that led to volatility and everybody thought, look, it's innovation, growth. >> 140 characters. >> there you go. but it's growth. look, it's growth. and then when you had the downturn you realize you were way far all the tail. eastern, for these banks, what you're seeing less of is real significant innovation on the consumer side. when i was at citiand bank of mare we talk about atm. it's been a while. part of it i can tell you i was chief financial officers for a period of time at citi so we

have people come with investment plans and we should make money like that on products about if you were innovating on the consumer time, because of the construct of the industry, so difficult to pull consumers from another bank so the return on innovation on the consumer side were much, much, much, much slower in coming. >> alex, how do you see the innovation challenge for yourself? i hear you're on the can be -- not the web -- iphones now. you go to the app store and get you in. >> a free tool called our money center. you can link their cans to and it see the entire financial life in one place. what we have -- we made this a free tool and users on the web blog, 2500 a month on the mobile a.m. 2-point -- >> it's almost a five are star

rating after hundreds of thousands of downloads so we're proud of it. what is innovative for us if you needed needed a size are vice, you can prison out documents, and one of the things we were focused on was a lot of the financial -- happens offlegitimate are archaic and i say that respectfully put you print out documents, see your planner, they charge you $3,000 a year and i do not be willing to pay $3,000 for a plan that seemed extremely steep, and also is back and forth for months. we said leads use a free teal tool and let the consumers organize their life and they can talk to an expert, and it's more like 250 to $500 for the year as

opposed to 3,000, and so for us, we wake up every morning trying to think about the consumer. we all call me, i'm consumer one. i literally created the product for me and that's where my passion and my commitment lies, the products -- we shouldn't build it for anyone else. and so that's all we innovate for, is for the customer and on the side of the customer. >> so one thing that alexa has really focused in on, which may not feel like an innovation but is important, which is the female customer, the fee meal in -- female investors. one of the industry rags in the wealth management industry, recently dade series of pieces on niche markets for national aid vicors. anyone want to get what one of the niche markets was in in women. half of the population, 60% of

college degrees. it's unbelievable. and actually what you hear from women who interact and engage with the traditional wealth managers is that while they may be in the meeting, typically it men talking to men and nodding to the woman, and that is part of -- part of the challenge is the traditional wealth management industry, 16-17% of their advisors are women, and so it really is men with men, and you think they're getting the whole family, but when the husband dies and the guy dies first, right? that just happens. it happens. >> thank you for looking at me with concern. >> the guy dies first. is that the woman typically does on average not keep her money with a financial adviceer. she doesn't feel fully engaged. >> we have 40 seconds. let me ask you both very quickly. if the tilt was the other

direction and you had many more women in the boardroom, many more ceos, just much more imbedded into the system, would the financial performance, the stakeholder side of society be different? we were talking about if women ran the world what would be different. just snapshots. >> i think -- men, women, as young person and i never saw myself -- >> are you saying that to be politically correct? >> no. i blew that. i saw myself as a young entrepreneur working as hard as possible. >> i'm going to end by slightly disagreeing with you. i think its should be the best team. and think about a basketball team. right? if all five members are raymond felton, and jimmy black, and zen marshal, and -- i'm naming point

guards, right? they could be the best players but they won't be the best team, and i don't know what would have happen if there had been more women. research shows that the more diverse teams, not only outperform on most metrics, teams, undiverse team perform more capably, and i would say if we look at the research, i think there -- i think its stands we would have had a more prosperous economy. >> ladies and gentlemen, please thank alexa and sally for a very informative session. i should simply add my colleagues, we had the atlantic live group and in our group we got 25 women and one other guy. i think if they were 25 guys, it would be a disaster. so thank you very much. >> coming up, a discussion about

syria's civil war, then a look at the role of afghan youth in leaving afghanistan. and then a discussion about online college education. >> it is criminal to me that i had to authorize my budget people -- my financial people to write a check for $454 million, to extend our contract with the russians to continue to carry our crews to the international space station on soyuz for 2016 and 2017 because we have not yet brought about the american capability coming with our commercial crew program. the president's budget called for $821 million for a commercial crew. we are not halfway there, the congress has -- my job is to try to persuade the congress that the plan is good and we're going to be efficient users of the taxpayers' money and i have not been successful in that yet but i'm working on it.

and is a have told every member of congress with whom i have talk, 821 million in the 2014 budget is vital if we're to make the 2017 date so americans are transported on american spacecraft. >> more from charles bolden, sunday night at 8:00 on q & a. >> we were recruised in the excelsior brigade out of new york city. this regimen was recruited in the fire halls of new york city, so the firearm of new york city answered the call. and there will be 350 of them

out here on july 2nd. they'll suffer 46% casualties. at the dedication ceremony, the honorable robert nooney said this: he said there are times in the lives of nations when encourage even a small number of men, or arouse in others the highest -- and spur them on to a sense of their duty and the greater degree and the chivalrous eloquence of even the most distant words.

>> discussed the oobama's decision to supply syrian rebel groups with weapons. the u.n. estimates as many as 100,000 people have tied in syria's civil war. from the washington institute for near east policy this is an hour and a half. >> good afternoon. good afternoon, and welcome to the washington institute. i'm the director of the institute and very pleased to welcome all of you to this special policy forum luncheon debate. don't often do debates and this is a debate among serious people on a serious topic so you won't

see the gloves on and the blood flying, but it is an important issue to talk about u.s. policy towards syria. and an audience like this and an audience watching on c-span knows very well, the issues that are at stake, the humanitarian issues at stake, of course, the political and military and strategic issues at stake, and there's a broad national, broad consensus about the urgency of the situation in syria, but considerable debate what the united states should do and what the united states should be leading in order to effect the situation on the ground. we, at the institute, the washington institute, have been actively engaged in trying to

present a broad range of information to the policymaking community. in addition to our speaker today, from the institute, andrew, i want to draw attention to everyone here and our viewing audience at the washington institute's web site which includes data from first-hand visits to the region by institute staff, visiting all bordering countries around syria. detailed reports based on these investigations, and policy prescriptions. today, we are brought together two of the most thoughtful and insightful observers of the situation in syria, and and as much the situation here in washington about syria, because today's discussion is really about what america should do

vis-a-vis the conflict, and the springboard for the discussion is an article in the current issue of foreign affairs, by andrew taylor. author of a book based on his eight years living in syria, and the article that andrew has written is titled "syrias a collapse and how washington can stop it." in that article andrew offers analysis of the situation in syria and a very -- a set of very specific prescriptions for what the united states should do on its own and concert with partners and allies in order to stop the carnage and stop the violence and bring about a resolution of the conflict. speaking today as well is

professor mark lynch. very happy to welcome mark back to this platform. not the first time mark spoken at the institute and happy to welcome him back. mark is a professor another george washington university. mark is the prodigious author of the aadvark blog and a frequent contributor to foreign policy, among many other platforms. and if you want to find a coherent or alternative view about what the united states ought to do vis-a-vis syria, then i suggest reviewing a series of foreign policy posts by mark. and so we have today two very smart, two very well-respected and consulting experts. i won't go into the details of the consultations each of them

has with senior government officials, but suffice to say that the arguments we'll be hearing today very much reflect the arguments on the table in front of senior government officials. now, of course, we have had a change in american policy in the last couple of weeks with the president oses a -- president's announcement of the beginning of direct u.s. military support to lethal weaponry to the armed opposition, but i think it's still suffices to say that the overall strategy remains unclear. what the objections are, what they ought to be, and whether we are bringing to bear the resources to meet those objectives, and and so in that concept the debate remains very much timely and very much appropriate. with that,'ll turn the podium first over to andrew and then mark lynch and then over to you for your questions and your comments.

>> one more word. plies silence your cell phones, turn them off if you can, silence if you must. >> thank you, ron, for that introduction, and thanks to the washington institute and all of my colleagues here and all their capacities for helping with today's event. tanks to all of youfor coming out and thanks thanks to profesk lynch for seasoning the invitation today. an issue that both of us believe is a crisis of the first order and one that we were just discussing a little bit before this began. we've been talking about behind closed doors for a better part of two years now, and that has followed the debate we have seen inside the u.s. government or heard about or heard echos of, that come out of policymaking circles, about the policy

prescriptions to deal with the syria crisis. so, perhaps my last set of thanks goes to president obama himself for his recent decision to recognize the -- regime has used chemical weapons and the decision to increase military support for the rebels and we are in an era of policy flux wind. we don't know the details and that's where going -- the articb discussed in, the article in foreign affairs about syria's collapse was based on a recent trip i made with my colleague and good friend, jeff weiss, to syrian border region, we were in every region except for iraq, and the one thing that came away from that trip and this dovetails with our policy report

when it came back earlier this year -- one thing that struck me in the theme that i think will carry us through a lot of my comments acts least today, is that the syria i lived in for so long and the one i've been writing on for quite some time, one you know very well, either the direct interaction or -- is just simply chernobylan-an fruit frankly the crisis generated from that environment now i think is a threat throw regional security architecture, and is likely to suck in not only a lot more of the renal regional powers and threatens to suck in greater national powers and this has major challenge for the united states going forward. we are, i'm afraid, at the beginning of this conflict, not at its end.

i can't see how it would end anytime soon. it very sad truth. the basis of my argument is fairly simple. it's given the trajectories i see inside of syria, which whici will explain here, which echoed in recent government announcements. it's not now a question of if we get involved but when, how, and at what cost. important attention has to be paid to outcomes and goals and markets and i a agree with them. we might not be able to completely end the syrian crisis, we might be, but by becoming more involved through an assertive approach i believe we can shape an outcome consistent with our interests and contain it as much as possible within syria's borders. so, my foreign affairs piece, i'd like to say, follows a lot of president obama's recent responses in charlie rose's interview. i'm sure he didn't read and it

then just go talk to charlie rose. what i want to say here is the president outlined very clearly what u.s. interests were, at least according to what you saw. first, there was -- articulated a humanitarian interest and this is the first part of my piece. talked about the destruction and death toll in syria. 100,000 killed, depositing on the numbers, just this month, in syria. now, this is the number of killed approximately in bosnia but in half the time. so, it's -- aid workers, it's bosnia on steroids and this 100,000 marker and this is going to be war that falls a lot of markers -- comes around the second anniversary of the president obama saying the pratt had to step aside. death tolls inside of syria now are worse than the death tolls

in iraq at the height of the conflict in 2007. there are also considerable regional interests that the president outlined which are now arisen. this is something that has not entered the policy consideration previously. there have been a number of writings about the humanitarian situation and their response based on the argument and the response based on chechneyan, iranian influence. it's clear that the outflow of refugees in jordan, where jeff and i spent a lot of time, was massive, as well to other other countries, and that those countries were unable to handle them and that somehow the previous arguments and policies making circles that we could deal with the symptoms of this crisis alone, not the disease itself, those arguments were wearing thin bases on the numbers we saw coming out. so those who have been there have noted, been to the north, jordan represents the country

fourth largest city. i encourage you to go there and talk with the people running the camp. go into the camp if you like. actually very little security. a wonder it all stays together inside. outside it doesn't matter. so, that's another major area of attention, then the president outlined the directness. and this is -- was the use of chemical weapons and chemical agents in this particular situation. various concentrations of sarin, according to u.s. officials and a major concern and one that threatened 0 they can this crisis and all the displacement and supercharge the situation and send people run over the border or into neighboring governments for cover and to stay out of these areas where

the chemical agents could be used. that we expect could continue without a check on president assad and the escalation in terms of the arsenal. i think the biggest takeaway i had from the -- from my trip, one that i took ncaa lot of my fellows at the institute share-is that the division of the country into these three general areas eye -- i outlined this sunni arab controlled area in the center and the area in the east and each one of those areas we see not just terror gist organizations present, we see them extended. a key part of each area's ability to go on the offensive. not only with each other but politically. so you're talking hezbollah recently. from the rebel forces. you seal the -- both in terms of

hard and shift -- soft power and the pkk present. now, why did this all matter to americans? like, many people pointed to a number of polls that indicate the americans do not want to intervene inside of syria. there are different responses about what the intervention might look like but generated a lot of skepticism for various reasons, having to do for the reason for our involvement in iraq, afghanistan, finance and so on. i think the biggest that i see strategic threat that is emerging out of all of this has to do -- took me back to my original discussions with policymakers when i came do washington five years ago, when i had to leave syria. that is, location, location,

location. for the first two years of the obama administration, we engaged the regime of the president not because we like him or his behavior was good. actually it was awful, but it was based on the idea that syria was very important not only in signing a peace treaty with israel and perhaps moving away from iran but also because of syria's geographic location. doesn't have a lot of oil, doesn't export a lot of goods. people are very friendly. but by and large didn't have a lot of u.s. interest there. but we had a lot of interests in the countries that surrounded syria. israel, jordan, iraq, where we spent billions of dollars. turkey, and lebanon where the u.s. doesn't have necessarily direct interests but a lot of historical interests and remaining military interests there. so i kind of think about this

and i kept on hearing everytime we would talk about why -- those that said we shouldn't get more involved in syria, would say, well, look what happened in lebanon. lebanon caught on fire. and literally burned down several times. for those who are from there or visited the country you know what i'm talking about. and you know what in the end, it didn't restore the region. and i think that the analogy that came to mind was that for all the horrific things that happened in lebanon during that time, lebanon is a small rural house on the end of the block. this is something that everybody hears in the block here this regional security architecture. the boundaries that have divided up the middle east for almost 100 years. so, lebanon would stabilize and the sectarian dimension was

contained by the involvement of the two end row houses, israel and then much more stable syria, with much different than -- much different democratic and it was sustainable and eventually -- and really a settlement that never been fully implemented was not necessarily successful but has brought relative -- very much the situation splitting the baby down the middle. the case of syria, syria is the row house in the middle of the block. and the problem with what we see inside of syria is that what happens there doesn't stay there. it's not like vegas where whatever happens there stays there. it's actually the potential for spillover is so great, and has accelerated over the last few months, whether it's the refugees or the involvement of hezbollah. if you would have told me a couple of years ago -- i have many friend inside the audience,

that andrew in a short period of time you're going to watch hezbollah rocket fire another arab country for at hour from lebanese territory. i would say, you've got to be crazy. the equivalent of hell freezing over, and yet i've seen it in the last two months and those who have been tracking the involvement of hezbollah. i don't think what's happening in syria will just stay in syrian i think it's less and less containable and i think that in and of itself threatens not only syria's neighbors but the security architecture as well in the region. right now, refugees in cross-border fire in the future, destabilization of different border areas of syria. northern jordan comes to mind, southern turkey, and it's true, things don't all the time -- don't often burn down immediately but over time, given that we don't have a solution to

this cries and one doesn't seem to be in the offing, at least as easy one, the potential for this to spread is much, much greater and deserves greater u.s. attention. so, my ideas in the paper we have discussed in meetings we have had in and outside of government circles and are not unknown to most of you. and there are four parts. one is, i believe that the first step is we need to enforce the chemical weapons use redline with president assad. when you lay down the lines you should enforce them. and the choices of not doing so rereverb rate beyond this case and affect how we're perceived in the region. but most importantly if we don'tens force the red line i

think the president bears every indication, based on the evidence, that president assad is moving up the escalation change. so already using chemical weapons. use of the surface-to-surface missiles is already the third most used against a civilian pop nation the history of the world. first adolph hitler, and then afghanistan is second and then the offense -- use of in civilian population whether the enemy, it's there, and i think unless we deter them from using them, that will cause more people to run over the border into neighbor can countries and potentially destabilizing them. second in order to contain this displacement we need to set up safe havens. i have written about this before. this areas would be ajay send to turkey, jordan, and would be enforced using patriot missile batteries or air craft.

these are not the only options and i say that in the paper. many courses of, a we discuss there in the last year or so. very from using patriot missiles, to more direct action with u.s. aircraft flying over the areas with more direct u.s. involvement flying over sirra, the risk goes up, and it's much more expensive. next i believe that the -- if we decide the president assad has to go and president assad going is part of the solution, we need to be able to work with the opposition to achieve that. the reason why i want president asad to go isn't just because he is a bad guy. the reason why president assad in my opinion has to go is that he lost his chance to reform his country. >> to deal with the demographic

wave overcoming that regime. the a assad ridge anymore has proved very rigid. has been unable to reform and has been unable to deal with the big elephant in the room and that is -- if you notice all the armed fighters have black beards and black hair and very, very little gray. that's because when you're seeing in sirways authoritarian car -- karma. there was a mastiff crackdown inside of syria. hard currency dried up. the economy contracted, and so for that ten years, even arab nationalists and communists were arrested, and everybody stayed home and had a lot of children, and during that period of time, syria was among the 20 fastest growing populations on the planet. and that was why many people

inside of syria were actually pushing assad for reform. the system can't reform and that system and president assad need to go in order to make a true transition from a tie ran cal and ridge edform of government to something more aaccommodatetive to the countries. and that works from the inside out. in order to do that we need to work with the syrian opposition in border region office syria, both in turkey and jordan and beyond, as well as perhaps in the future state areas depending on if they're developed and over what periods of time. a lot of details in any paper. at the end of this i advocate deployment. i don't think we should throw it away. i think it's something we should always keep open but i don't think at this point, the facts bear me out, that what we see in the process is going to yield

either talks or anything that would lead to a true transition that would deal with the difficult situations inside the country. what i see in the future is the end of this is a syria that remains divided in into three areas, regime controlled in the west, sunni arab in the center, and kurds in the east, and that at the end of this process we should try, as this -- to bring those pieces back together. that is a very, very distant goal at those point but it's worth trying to keep syria together, whether it's in a -- i don't think in its current form it's possible. perhaps something more decentralized, and as part of the negotiations, perhaps at long last those who were around the regime, and might feel more confident when behind their lines, to have president assad and his immediate family leave

the scene, and that might give them the kind of guarantee they would like in the interim so they can't feel as many minorities around syria that a transition in syria would mean having your head chopped off, and i can understand that fear and i can understand the facts that the reg scream has been pumping this fear threw the media in order to see them around this regime. and so instead of starting with diplomatics and without the syrian people and the u.n. security council we should start with the syrian people and then winds if diplomacy. hopefully the u.n. security council buff but if not, some process, either switzerland or norway but there are a number of other actors that might be able to negotiate a peacened to this crisis. so with that i'll conclude and handed officer to mark. thank you. [applause]

>> i'd like to thank you for coming out here on an extremely hot friday afternoon at the end of june, and i'd like to thank rob for inviting me back here. he says he doesn't usually host debates but oddly everytime i come here i'm in the middle of one. and i'd like to thank andrew for the hard work he has been doing on this issue over the last few years. rob and andrew alluded to the many, maybe workshops, events we have been involved with and one of the things that the most impressive thing about andrew and i think a number of other people who i see around in this room, they have been focused on trying to solve the problems in the area instead of having the bipartisan base and trying to deal with syria and trying to find workable solutions and that's what we all need to be working on. authors don't choose their own titles, as the editor of the middle east channel on foreign

policy.com, i get to choose the titles on those articles but for foreaffairs, andrew's article is entitled syria's collapse: and how washington can stop it. i fully and completely agree with the main head. syria is collapsing. the state has collapsed. the humanitarian arm, strategic void, everything he describes, more or less goes along with my understanding of what is happening in syria. no disagreement in our assessment of the strategic situation of the reality or the danger of the collapse of a syrian state or of the general balance of forces on the ground. or for that matter, on the imperative to try and eye meal -- ameliorate or a civil war that will stretch on for a long time. there's no easy or quick fix to the problem of syria.

our disagreement primarily lies in the subhead which some associate editor added, hough washington can stop it. don't think washington can stop it. i think washington can do some somethings and has been doing some things, might be able to try other things but at the end of the day the magnitude of what is happening in syria is well beyond the united states to control, the shape or to decisively end. i want to be veer very clear. most of the debates, including andrew's, is around a certain set of limits. can't tell you how many times in the last couple of year is have heard the words nobody is talking about boots on the ground. thank god. nobody is talking about boots on the ground. my point is that even with abouts on the ground, all the -- 150,000 troops occupying damascus we couldn't stop this. proved it in iraq. that all in doesn't mean you can absolutely solve this problem.

we could overthrow assad week till him and detroit his regime, but then we have to solve the problem of a collapsed state, a shattered society and the repatriation of what is left and what has been left behind and i think that any serious discussion -- i include andrew very much in this category of sir serious asking -- has to begin from the premise that trying to understand what syria is going to look like at the end anniversary game the middle of this game as well as right now. and when we talk about only the president would do this or if only he would arm the rebels, if only he would at any rate a safe area, if only he would really mean it when he says that assad must go, all the problems would be resolved. i don't think any serious person really believes that. we need to understand that our arguments and discussions are taking place at the margins. where we might marginally affect

humanitarian situation, the strategic situation, the political situation, the magnitude of what is happening in syria is well beyond the ability of any minor fiction or major fix from washington. what that means is it is absolutely and completely true that the president's strategy for syria has not solved the problems of syria. i think parts of the strategy have been useful. parts of them have been disastrous, parts have been good ideas that haven't work out but it's clear when you have a situation with 100,000 dead, millions displaced, sectarianism spreading like wildfire throughout the region, that's not a policy you want to hold up and call success. the problem is that none of the major alternatives are better and i often here from senator mccain and others that everything which the critics would have if we enter

intervened has happened anyway. syria is a disaster but we north imbedded next deep in a quagmire with american troops now caught in the relentless pressure to expand our commitment to go deeper, stay longer, have a surge of troops, try to counter insurgent si strategies, people talk about the slippery slope like a throwaway thing, we're worried about that now let's get on with things. you have to think about what happens when step one doesn't work. so i think that actually need to think about the various policies on offer. i think three of the four of what andrews put forth -- i'm happy with all four except he didn't completely describe number one which is not just enforcing the deterrence of weapons with air strikes trying to take owl -- out he chemical weapons site. there has to be a firm and clear line between any kind of direct

american military intervention and then we need a whole range of things we can consider. i believe that the current move to openly arm the rebels comes uncomfortably close to that line but doesn't cross it. i think that air strikes, the enforce. of safe areas, or declaration of safe areas crosses that line. once ear across the line, unless you can get me a clear store with the conflict and then i think we are on the slippery slope, exactly what everybody says they're not talking about, which is relentless eggs a laceration because once you're in, you're in. people remember the discussion about libya in 2011. the same people that argued they were not talking boots 0 on to

the ground and once you're in it, you have to within so we have to be cog any sent not just of step one but step two, three, four, five. now, let me talk about where i -- my general sense of how this is playing out and what i think we and can cannot do. i think we generally speaking the argument about arming the rebels, which has dominated debate in washington for quite a while, has larger than a red herring, largely irrelevant. read something over a year ago where i suspected this is where we would go. why? because of what i just said a minute ago. a way of showing we were doing something without actually getting ourselves directly committed to military intervention. bureaucrat include speaking, you can't do something. you find something in the middle that won't actually solve the problem but might help a little bit on the margin. i'm surprised it took so long

but i don't think it matters very much. there was a point at which it mattered. that was ruthly between novel of 2011 and march of 2012 when you were seeing a debate taking place inside the syrian opposition and across the region about whether to shift from a peaceful upraising to a militarized insurgency and that was a serious debate and there were very real reasons to avoid the militarization of the conflict. my fear at the time, the reason i argued against its at the time and many others in the room did as well, is because the recognition that assad had an extraordinarily difficult time dealing with the nonviolent challenge and moral challenge where it was a peaceful uprising, in the air, and brutal regime, told people inside of syria there might be a useful and better alternative to the assad regime, the minority

communes might have a safe future in such a regime, had the opportunity to reach out across sectarian lines and to prevent the spread of this sectarian fear, the collapse of the state, and the unleashing of extremely predictable dynamics and logic of militarizeis, unfortunately because assad proved he was willing to carry out unspeakable brutality against the syrian people, and very, i think, sin clerk used the strategy of brutality in order to force the opposition into a militarized response -- in other words, he helped to push them there because lewaned to identifying on that ground. a ground where he was much more confident of winning. and you were right. i think that the militarization is a disaster for the syrian revolution, and almost everything was predicted by the syrian advocates of nonviolence uprising has been validated.

very few fence-sitters left in syria. i think syria's minority communes are absolutely terrified of the victory of what is increasingly seens the sunni insurgency and we now have a strategic stalemate which is very much at the expense of the syrian people and i see very little possibility of either side, the opposition or assad, re-establishing control or viable function over the syrian state. ...

in which we are debating about how and the modalities by which we will support an insurgency. this is very different from where we were before. so i guess what it comes down to now is trying to figure out whether the ties of steps that andrew was talking about are likely to help this insurgency not win. that is actually not necessarily the goals that we are fighting for. that is part of the problem. with the different ways of supporting the insurgency are more or less likely to produce results that are likely to serve american interests. and did to this point those interests have been defined in my view correctly is trying to find some kind of political transition which preserves the

rudimentary functioning of the state to remain in find some way to prevent what otherwise is to be an inevitable cycle of revenge killings combusted failures, state breakdowns, and essentially afghanistan 1990 which is where it appears we are headed. now, it could be that the steps being discussed here would accomplish that. and it could be that syria is unique, and i think that every case is unique. syria is just as unique as every other case, but what comparative experience and most political science studies, this kind of external support for insurgencies tell us is that this kind of international support for insurgency, which is usually going to the weaker side which is what they need international support is to make war logger and bloodier, more difficult to find a negotiated

up but at the end, create and exacerbate dynamics of state failure and economies of those benefits from the black market associated with the insurgency and ultimately make it less likely that you will have the democratic or stable regime in the random war finally ends as most wars eventually do. it could be that syria is different in that it will go differently this time. would feel more comfortable if anybody -- and it has not happened in two and a half years of having these documents -- if anybody could point me to let case where such a strategy has worked. if that could happen, and it is extremely frustrating that we have not been able to find one in dan sure we can talk about the examples of are immediately bopping to mind, the french support for the american revolution will not cut it. if you have to go back that far and take such a radically different case than i am not

convinced. so the logic of army rebels given everything have just said essentially boils down -- the logic of this, fully adjudicated . you all know the basic logic of while we have moved toward trying to arm the rebels. basically if we start warming the syrian rebels, a couple of things will happen. one, we will stabilize the battlefield and prevent the rebels from losing and enable them to basically respond to what many people seem to think is the regime's military advantage. secondly, for those of us, including andrew, who supported a diplomatic end game that will be more likely to get an acceptable in the game of the rebels were able to bargain from a position of strength. the broad recognition that there are these groups that are part of the insurgency.

they are stronger than the groups that we would like to support. if we give them weapons it will be stronger and mit it will to weaken the appeal, therefore by arming the opposition we for the battle against assad and weaken the extremists alarm us. finally this will then give us a greater say, a greater stake in the greater influence over postwar syria. we will win the gratitude, the political support, and basically have will roll in post assad syria after the rebels we have armed have either won or negotiated a transition. this hell is good, and i have heard it expressed extremely well that many people, including some in this room. i am simply not convinced that

any step in the causal chain, four steps. the argument that the u.s. providing arms would make a significant difference in the strategic equation rests on a couple of assumptions i don't think our right. weapons have been flowing for last year and a half. the u.s. would be entering into a crowded market of weapons. and it is not like it was a year-and-a-half ago where you have the advantage to make a strategic qualitative difference. now you become one player in the crowded field. number one, of course you will strengthen them if you give them more or better weapons. this is a change on the margins, not a change in tight. number two : this would matter the most and will get to the

point. i will say something positive. this will matter the most if and only if we're able to establish a unified supply chain in which we were the only supplier of weapons or at least were able to direct the flow of weapons from our allies in the gulf, turkey, jordan and in other words, unify the flow weapons into a unified political opposition which would then have oversight over unified military course. none of those conditions apply. we don't agree on the goals with our major allies. the saudis spend more time competing with each other over influences than they do with the concern correcting of a unified strategic plan. the fragmentation and political dysfunction of the opposition is not something over here while the funding of the insurgency is

over here. what causes and supports the other. money flowing in, flowing in from the saudis, and now from las, all of this helps to increase the fragmentation, separation, internal conflict, internal battling between loose amalgams of local militias and forces with fluid memberships and varying degrees of controls over different areas. my punch line is that we should be as we have been putting much more effort into trying to do decentralization, organization, and political leaders of the provision of aid to the syrian opposition and thinking that simply providing counsel did the trick. but the bottom line is that the hiring of the rebels has been toy gun for a long time in a decentralized way and that

unless we can get control over that we will simply be adding to it, rather than qualitatively changing it. never too, with the assumption that we can radically change this, ascend through the provision of arms and the sin that russia, iran, hezbollah and the other backers are maxed out. if we add to the makes we will then shift to create a balance favorable to the opposition. maybe the foreign backers of assad simply respond by increasing their rates in the simply haven't a circulatory letter. this is an empirical question about whether the iranians are russians are maxed out, but i see no evidence whatsoever of they are. third, i simply do not believe that we will drive away gian this spike becoming more involved in the conflict.

that is not the lesson of anyplace else in the world. what we are involved in love being there even more and will continue to fight us and be able to use our involvement open in public now has a pretty good argument as to why the ones receiving the weapons are not, in fact, often did representatives of the syrian people of islam and they grand sunni war against the infidels. the idea that there will simply step back and say we had a good run but now the americans are funding the moderate rebels strikes me as exceedingly unlikely. the united states has been deeply and correctly worried that some of the weapons will flow to these extremist groups. now we are told that the cia has decided that they have identified the good guys and can provide guns to them and they will not go to the extremists.

i find this to be ridiculous. they do insurgency things. car bombs. the idea that there is some bad, but mostly just opportunists and are fighting because they have better weapons. if we have better weapons that will come to our side. a key part in a causal chain is just logically insane because once we have attracted to these opportunists to our side with better weapons and now they have better weapons and the wind shifts and no place heavily get more weapons, why in the world wouldn't these opportunists reach back? will would hold them in place? you would think it would be as strong centralized command-and-control, but we know that does not exist. the idea that the provision of weapons is going to somehow

marginalize and desolate and remove the extremist presence in syria is deeply implausible, particularly because the insurgency is moving up the a circulatory latter meeting that the fighting will get bloodier. it will get nastier. all of the pressures that andrew so correctly identified would increase a desolate. there might be some examples out there in the world of people becoming more moderate and less disposed to radical ideas. when the state collapses and the blood flows. more likely radical ideas would become more attractive as the fighting escalates and as the state collapse accelerates. so you know, i am sure that there are some good levels and i hope we can support them, but i think that we should have no illusions whatsoever that we will have lasting influence or control over them whether they are allied with our values or that they -- we can place their

bets and that they will then deliver on our behalf. i think that if we give comes to a particular general and then say we don't like what you did to that local community, we will not support you anymore, you would probably say okay. we will get argon someplace else now. one of the things i hear now unfortunately, one of the things that is changed his with the change and even before that, the idea that there now taking the lead in this is a good thing, that there not taking the lead in the organization and arming of the opposition. let me just say if you are counting on saudi arabia to deliver a liberal, democratic, anti sectarian and non islamist opposition, and sorry. i can't help you. i don't believe it.

what will our been the rebels' speaker that? it will be pretty good showing. it will give john kerry some chips and diplomacy and temporarily strengthen our proxy's relative to others. all of those will be good for a month or so and then we will be right back to where we have been , which is having arguments about when and whether to begin air strikes, no-fly zones, and the like. i do not think all as helpless. there are useful things that we can do and we should be doing more to build the political opposition, much more to channel all aid through the political leaders of the opposition, both military and nonmilitary. we should be doing more. i promise you we have been trying to knock heads with our allies. maybe harming will give us more

leverage of the saudis and others. we should be doing those things, but i am not plan to stand up here and promise you that this is the magic solution that will solve this problem. aiden not think there is a solution. that is a very depressing way to end this. [applause] >> great. thank you both very much. i now have the great pleasure to be a provocateur and devil's advocate against both of your positions. i think it is important. i would like to at least begin to focus on the higher strategic level of a what the objectives are. rather than the tactical implementation level for a moment. let me ask each of you this question or ask each of you a question. first to andrew, the opening

remarks, we have three parts of syria and effectively with three different u.s. terrorist organizations fighting each other. the question that was addressed in today's post is a very good question. isn't this a great blessing, this conflict? three terrorist organizations killing each other. we will come back in a year or two. in the meantime. >> protect the jordanians, turks, make sure it is not overflow the borders. isn't that a reasonable strategy? and mark, on the total others side, my gosh, the iranians are all lying. a we going to lose? do we really want the iranians to win here? sinn the fundamental prime

directive be to ensure that the iranians don't win and do whatever is necessary to make sure that terrible calamity does not happen? gentleman. >> the first time you ask me that question. you know it has a certain cold hearted calculus to it. i mean, we have the sworn enemies of the united states that killed americans or tentacles of killed americans over the years of fighting each other. doesn't that sound great? well, again, i think it gets back to the situation. that would all work until it doesn't work. what i mean by that is that that kind of works until that

conflict becomes an containable within the current boundaries of the arena. i think that is what our view in the peace. it becomes very difficult to contain that because what you end up doing is destroying the country. you can end up destroying a people but also expanding politically extremism among the three different areas, and i do not think that is something that is in our interest. making this more dangerous, dangerous to our immediate allies. turkey, jordan, israel, lebanon, but making this more dangerous is, i don't feel comfortable or sei fell knowing that this kind of battle with these kind of groups taking place is centered around an area where the largest

stockpile of chemical weapons in the middle east. i realize they are in regime hands. we cannot guarantee that going forward. a lot of these things are loaded into shells that can be fired from artillery pieces. this is not stuff that can easily be kept under lock and key. that in itself has a number of downside risks to it. beyond the regional security architecture you have that. i think that is the reason why president obama allied it as a direct threat. there are a number of ways. as that conflict expands, what i am wallboard about is, i think it is perfectly feasible what is going forward that we could have the co foundries in a.d. shore

cents in place, but in a defective sense to have some many syrians in so many different areas that it will become part of that serious the so many talk about but now probably don't really what. i think that in itself, the destabilization of the northern provinces in itself is also a threat and the area being politically extremist. so getting to this point, i guess i say it in the article directly, but in a way -- in most ways this is a political operation using military means. we are shaping a rapidly changing environment. so that in itself, like mark said, makes this much, much more complicated in heart. the one thing and would add to that is that of the four steps i

outlined, all of these to not have to go in order. but all have to do all of the same time. i learned this lesson the bit from the iranians and watching the adversaries battle with us. there are very good at looking at the full-board of options and turning this novel of interning this one on. they're very, very good at that. obviously they don't have public pressure to go up the escalation changes can see, we are doing this and will give rhetoric. i think he is right. oftentimes we give locked into a situation where believe we have to go lolland. i don't think that will win it in syria. it might at a certain point. a lot of unknowns, but it will be a much more complicated situation.

armed with this and i totally agree a was recently in israel with a senior security intelligence official where respect very much. many of you know, we were all thinking about this crisis, this was the most complicated challenge that israel has ever faced. i was taken aback. this is a country that had a lot of challenges. is the most complicated. he said we are nowhere close to the end of it. i don't think it is the united states. our allies think along similar lines as well. >> good questions. again, i want to emphasize if it was not clear from before the and i agree with the lot of the recommendations. he has a very good and useful

politics first approach to this with the military actions in the farming in support of the political objectives. so i recommend that. did not mean to say that you didn't. others not so much, but i think that is important. in terms of -- i don't agree with your question to andrew or me. i don't disagree with let them fight it out. hezbollah and al qaeda are killing each other. what is the problem? i don't agree with that because they're killing thousands and thousands of syrians and doing all the other things we have been talking about. it is also not a zero sum game. they will pull the flypaper idea that you can attract the bad guys and kill them. silly because you're generating just as many, exacerbating the radicalization process elsewhere. it is not like their is a fixed sum or zero some. the most worrying thing is that

have been writing about extensively is the way that this is turning into very much a regionwide and international wide sectarian campaign, the sectarian sunni or which is very much will we saw in afghanistan along the 1980's or bosnia or others, saudi lead using media, mosques and these religious networks to mobilize people and get them to provide money. so it's not just the extremists but the mainstream, the was a we're working life. some of them might come over and die and syria, but more and more of them are popping all over the region. the notion that there's a fixed number of these guys you'd go was wrong. on the other side.

tickets to the nub of the strategic question of overall goals. we have not decided as government, policy, community, and people disagree is serious civil war something that needs to be solved or a frog in a regional war against iran that needs to be one. these are different things, and the steps that might be taken to stop the killing, find a political transition and not the ones you would take what you really wanted to do was to bleed iran up and fight it out. a think that understanding with the strategic objective is will be difficult and gets back to the point i was making. we don't agree with our allies. for example, the jordanians and turks would probably prefer to solve this problem because is threatening to overwhelm the country's, whereas the saudis

would be perfectly happy to keep fighting until the last debt syrian. that is the strategy that makes perfect sense. we have not articulated it. >> okay. let's open the floor to your questions. we will start with paul and then go to the far back. when you get the microphone make sure you identify yourself. i would be great. >> the fascinating discussion. it is sort of like the war itself. there will not be a winner. a similar discussion at a conference in houston. the for ways of looking at this kind of thing. despite these arrangements, far from being security architecture , that's an

artificial overlay imposed by outsiders that has prevented the inevitable sorting out that not to have taken place in the 1920's after the collapse of the ottoman empire. then it was sold with the colonials preventing it from happening. it's happening now and it can be prevented. wishes step out of the way and go with the winner. i take it you do not agree with that. >> i don't agree with it. i think that the reason why i see it as the major concerns is because a lot of things happened since the boundaries were drawn. nation's, as imperfect as they are often times were builds. security arrangements, armies were raised. in the case of syria, and this is really important, they also then bought and produced the largest stockpile of chemical weapons. the breakup of syria itself to

me threatens the lot of that other architecture. the down sides of this and breaking down are so great on so many different levels in new that it would create a political and military chaos that would lead to this great armageddon were the we are all probably trying to avoid. that is the reason why our like to keep it contained within syria. it is pretty straightforward. that might not all occur. the reason why i wrote this article was very clear. that is, i see the meltdown, the chernobyl cereal as a threat to u.s. interest on the number of levels. i think we are invested in the architecture. it's 100 years old. and just letting everybody did it out of the system is not

wise. we should put some constraints on that. we might not be able to control everything. i think you all know that is just the way you go -- the way it goes when you publish something, but as much as we can try and shape it, it is important for our assets in the region. >> the far back the. >> my name is edward joseph with john simons. i agree with the previous questioner. i would like to take up the challenge to give you an example of where army insurgents made the decisive difference. bosnian 1995 -- actually, 1994. i would underscore the training of both in particular.

forces were the key determinant, not nato air strikes. actually, it was the improvement in the capacity of the ground forces that made the difference on the ground that brought the serbs to the negotiating table seriously which is what made it possible. of course there are many differences, and with someone who i am sure you are quite familiar with fleshy and i had written an article in the national interest that examines the differences between bosnia and syria. among them, and this is just to get to anders point about bosnian, of course syria has over five times the population. to have the same relative impact they have in bosnia. many of the differences. my question to answer.

marquez -- >> who will have told that there. >> can i ask a question? >> quickly. >> he said that intervening would be a few gile. would you agree? can you address that point? >> okay. >> bosnia. i am glad the mentioned bosnia. did not confuse it with those of the like some columnists. yes, you're right. what tips the balance in bosnia was the arming of the croatian military and their conventional victory against serbian forces, but did not tip the balance, the creation of safe areas which proved to be unenforceable, air strikes which proved to make very little contribution to the actual resolution of the conflict. it was only the full-scale arming and the victory of the croatian army which did the

trick. i am not sure who you envision playing the role of the croatian army. it was not the army of bosnian insurgents but the army of a conventional military which than one a conventional military victory. at the end of that there was the date and process in which we then took milosevich and legitimate him in power and made him a key part of the solution. basically when involved was agreeing to the partition of the country and legitimate in the role of the architect of the massacres being willing to wine and dine and drink whiskey with the guy and not seek international justice and then basically having had be enforced through a major international peacekeeping operation with acceptance of the russia and the

neighbors. if you're willing to go all the way and invasion the role of assad equals lead to milosevich, finding someone to play the role of the croatian army, of wedding international justice and giving the assad that particular role, that is a possible path, but i am not sure is the one that most people really have in mind. it is a good experiment to work through, but i'm not sure it has the lessons the some people might think. >> hold for now let's get another couple of questions. >> thank you. a quick question. the president to precipitous in painting himself into a corner? is geneva for all practical purposes?

>> we can get in the last round. >> okay. army rebels. no, i don't think it is of utile exercise. however, as you noticed, the recent announcement was harming the supreme military council witches have essentially the armed affiliate, the syrian opposition coalition. now, that organization was created around the same time secretly off in the wings. we have a paper coming up. now overall they have many good qualities including a number of defectors from the syrian military and people i have meant. the problem is in my opinion given that we have seen the growth of extremism with in the opposition's ranks in two instances, one as they are closer politically in terms of

the common cause with extremists including. [indiscernible] the weapons the provided via those channels could very well laid out. they might not leak out. lot of things happen when you move through a checkpoint. people tell me how that used to work. offloading of weapons is exactly , a very common one. that's my first. that's also very important and where i take issue with the administration. unwed geneva was dead. when the team that was negotiating this to "bow was n

and the opposition to agree as well. as the -- at the time it was seen as a check by the regime's announcement to calculations. what it does is now gives this process, if we continue with it, that lease on life and he will continue. said this earlier today. i've covered to syrian elections it was not pleasant. i can tell you. they were begging me to vote with blood from my thumb. now was a less than zero chance that anybody else then assad will win if he runs in 2014 or if they oversee the transition.

it will take a lot more than that. has to be something else. that's why i differ with the russians. true transition means we move from make a ball of people over to our group of people that represent the different kirk -- demographic differences that is why i don't see the meeting happening because it seems like the united states and russia are at odds. >> the president was too precipitous. >> yes. i mean, there was a huge amount of pressure at the time for the president to come out and take this forceful position that assad must go. the road apiece at the time. one of my all-time favorites. a magical incantation that just

by saying he would make it so. clearly it wasn't. it created a set of expectations which could not be met. earlier today was convinced that he was not among this group, but most of us miscalculated the ability of katie to survive. my calculation was that as long as it was a peaceful uprising that assad could not survive because of the moral force of nonviolent protest of what this would do to the syrian kind of middle ground and that he simply could not survive in that way. once it turned into a military confrontation my expectation of is like a survival went way up. this early military intervention, the idea that the first sign of a nato jet assad would run for the hills clearly was not right and that we all, not just the president, got that wrong. the assad must go at that stage

as a descriptive statement by someone like me, sure. that is a reasonable and lit a judgment as a declarative statement by the president pro we should not have been made. >> tim right here. >> thank you for this terrific discussion. i have a question for you about the chemical weapons and the so-called red line that has allegedly been crossed. if you recall -- and i am sure all this too, there was a great deal of evidence presented to congress and the united nations and the public by the administration on iraqi weapons of mass destruction and what they were doing with them. in this case we had a declaration by the president. as far as i know we all have anything presented to congress, either classified or unclassified. you have the head of the eu diplomacy saying that their analysis is that the rebels used chemical weapons. what is the evidence?

why has not yet ministration presented it? >> hold on. in front. >> this is a good book. the art of war. know your enemy and know yourself. let's stress than know yourself. should we do whatever is necessary? the american people willing to support that? >> i want to get them to answer each other. tell us what happened. if we don't follow up the issue and the syrian war continues to

get out of hand and a no-fly zone is not enough. if you could let us know, marc, answered the main concern of andrew which is what happens when this becomes much more regional. >> okay. while we start from that. this will be the final round of questions. gentlemen. >> i'm glad she asked me a question soda not have to answer cans. look, like i said, i expect this to be a long-term war which is increasingly internationalized and shaping the entire region. no illusions about that. the question about -- the arab state is much more resilient and we often think they are. pat quinn the war was at its worst a lot of people thought that something similar would happen and it is different. i am shocked that there still --

they have not left yet. i think that speaks to something about the resilience and power of that supposedly from now state structure. interestingly though -- and with lebanon i feel like lebanon and syria are so interrelated that there is a very high chance -- i am surprised there has not been morse spillover from syria and lebanon, more fighting in lebanon and we have already seen i expect that it will happen now that has the law is openly involved. i think jordan will be okay, but i think that jordan for better or for worse as a lawyer experience with massive flows of refugees, and in the security strip -- endemic security threats. i am not as worried about jordan. turkey will be okay. the one that i am worried about, i think that the iraqi state has its own internal issues. the creeping authoritarian isn't

going down for a long time. the violence goes up and down. it's deeply worrying. it does introduce a new factor in there. i know not how responsive that is, but thinking about the spread that's where all the many ways in which this might be playing out, that's the one that worries me the most. >> it's a good question. the obama administration for my understanding of its internal deliberation was concerned because of the slam-dunk that we had. of course, the embarrassment that comes from that and the miscalculations that come from that and so on. so they were very cautious about that from the beginning that there really wanted to make sure

the assessment of the united states are shared by the u.k. and france. arab allies, i am not sure. israel ballet also share that assessment. in order to gather that evidence it was not only based upon accounts of what happened with those inside of the country, but they actually were involved in bringing out doctors who are treating those patients, individuals who had been exposed to those engines and also i believe the courts as well. i'm not sure on the last detail. they tested those individuals and those bodies and found that there were exposed to low doses of sarin. that is the evidence that i know about. there will be more of it given that there will be other ways to go about it.

and so that is out there think the language. and the fact that it came out of the white house is not insignificant given how has it in their work for this land back to reoccur, so this peak. always a good question. what happens? i think what happens there is leaders command i know that is a casual thing to say. i'm from the same party as the president, but what you do it is that you look at what happens, you look at what is happening inside the country return one not often another on. instead of automatically going of the escalation change. it's hard because of political opponents often pound you for being a wimp under certain circumstances which is the way democracy often times works. in this particular case given the complexities of that i think the president is going to have to find a way to navigate all of that.

the american public is cautious. they're cautious now given the way that they believe it is affecting them in the way it has been articulated by the. part of that is framing the issues and the risks accordingly so that when in increase in those risks to the country curve that the american public is ready to do what is necessary. right now we don't know what those are oil reserves and gas reserves. realize they don't care inside this area, but the rest can spread. when i learned, grope in a community where oil was discovered in the 19th century , the number-one lesson was, the important part of oil is not the supply but the price. this was the most important

thing. that's another way that this could affect the everyday american beyond this spilling out and affecting our regional allies in a more comprehensive way such as israel, and i believe that it will or other allies such as jordan. that particular case we would have to risk accordingly. i outlined this piece that i believe is assertive and measured. nonaggressive, but assertive and ones that can help shape this conflict positively. >> thank you. i just wanted to echo entries last comment on stanley's question. my own view for what it is worth is the final of these polls about america's interested in gauging irrelevant in the sense that if the leaders of the united states have not explained 17 should not expect average voters to think it was important. the real poll will be we aren't

there yet. we may not be. and that, i think, is the end result of the debate. we still don't really know what the overall strategy is to although we have a pretty good reasonable consensus on what to do even in the absence of a strategy which is fascinating. on that note, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us today. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> i was also looking for things that were completely pessimistic at think we could have won without patton, without lemay, but i do not think it -- you take away themistocles from burned out athens and two-thirds of greece occupied, they would have fought without belisarius, the emperor justinian would not have recovered much of the get taken atlanta at the costa we took it. i know anyone who could have done what match your bridgeway. i wish i could say there were one are to the not very many that could have done what patraeus did. >> military historian talks about five generals that he says

singlehandedly reverse to the direction of the war to their countries favor. >> the group afghanistan 1400 is a political movement that encourages afghanis to take responsibility for the country as foreign troops withdraw. members of the group talked about the state of afghanistan at the u.s. institute of peace. this is an hour-and-a-half. in. >> okay. i think we will go ahead and get going. and the director of afghanistan and pakistan programs here at the u.s. institute of peace. i would like to thank all of you for coming. i would like to particularly thank our panelists for coming today. a special thanks to the society foundation for helping to organize this event with u.s. ibm for being responsible for bringing in least two of our panelists to the u.s. to participate in this event.

there is lots of doom and gloom stories about afghanistan in the press today. while there is, indeed, a lot to be concerned about, is important to recognize the tremendous gains that happen and have been achieved of the past decade. and that think a lot of those gains have been achieved by the next generation in afghanistan. we -- it is incumbent upon all of us to do our utmost to see what we can do to preserve those gains. that is why it is important to have representatives of that next generation with us in washington to talk about some of their concerns, goes for the future and what they think needs to be done, both by afghans as well as the international community to help protect some of the gains and indeed promote those during the coming years. while there is much to be hopeful about, there is, of

course, many challenges. i think facing the next generation. think we must acknowledge those. afghanistan does face an incredible huge bulge, an estimated 68 percent of the population of afghanistan is today under the age of 25. and that poses tremendous challenges in terms of provision of education, in terms of provision of health care, a provision of employment virginities. and i think especially with afghanistan's going through quite a transition during the coming years, including an economic transition, i think the employment challenges for this new generation, how to find gainful employment is going to be one of the key challenges. at think we might hear more about that today. education is going to also be critical. a lot has been achieved of the past decade. i used to be the save the children director in afghanistan in the 90's.

when you hear about all the pessimism in afghanistan it is important to remind us where we were 15 years ago, even 12 years ago. a very difficult circumstances, very incredible challenges in terms of educating both boys and girls in that context and incredible what has been achieved over the past decade. however, i think we also need to remind ourselves that education can be a force for positive stability. we also need to go back to the 16 70's and remember the university which proved to be quite an effective incubator, radical politics on the left and right which contributed significantly as the next three decades of conflict. in that regard it's disturbing that the amount of area i studied in depth the law reports you often do here for example from the university politics is that ethnic politics are a major force in terms of the politics

there today. again, how can we make education a force for peace in afghanistan rather than a force for conflict? lots of generational tension, i think. we have a much better educated young regeneration today than the older generation. yet power continues to be monopolized by the older generation. how that will be worked out, including possibly the next election cycle will be quite interesting. afghanistan's face a lot of urban or rural divide which has been a source of conflict. that is a divide that the new generation is also contended. the think this is an area which is under study. what is the impact of the communications and media revolution for.

the nonprofit sector, but also the ability for boys and girls and young men and women to communicate through the internet, iphone, social media to an extent never before seen in afghanistan. it i could go on. it is a fascinating topic. i will turn over to our panelists. i will turn it over to rachael will be moderating the session. director of the regional policy initiative with the open society foundation. lots of expertise on afghanistan prior to being with a less-she was an analyst with the human rights. prior to that a career in journalism, particularly at the bbc where she was also covering afghanistan. with that will turn it over to you, rachael.

>> thank you for hosting a state . the key to our panelists for joining us. very important discussion. i first went to afghanistan for the bbc and lobbied long and hard to try to go and report on something other than the conflict. seven years later i am still trying to do the same thing. we also have corruption. stories often about women victims. saying this lens is distorting not just in the media but also policymakers here because i am missing half the country really, and that is what we are representing. it is great that we will be able to hear from them in terms of how they vision the future and how they think they can tackle some of the challenges which andrew has alluded to. one of the most encouraging things have seen has been the emergence of this new civil and

political movements. we have one of them, the afghanistan 1400, the afghan millennium. they have a different calendar year. i want to also recognize another movement called afghanistan analysis and awareness. and there are many more. the youth activism that we are seeing. we will start with 1400. to my left, the chair of 1400. just to say, you will see, she and to our left they have set up the business. going down the storm on the hill. it's great to hear. who will star with her. the council and then we will

hear, u.s. ap, a senior analyst. a leading activist in civil society. and finally, the deputy director to afghanistan, our counterpart international. doing some work. so the picture of the diversity of youth and some of the aspirations. but i will start by turning it over. >> thank you. i am very honored to be here. speaking about afghanistan 1400 not only because i represented but it's that transformation. is the 1400 millennium for us. and the reason we choose to include 1400 our aim is that

generally politics and afghanistan is qaeda focused on the past, and ongoing blame game of who did what when wind. focus, but the future of afghanistan and talk about the vision beyond 2014, the western calendars, a vision for afghanistan. that is why we chose the name. i think that the beginning of 1400, the idea has been around for more than two years. it happened because of the realization that the fear has been the past ten years the new generation of afghans have come of age. more willing to work. shared future. they have strong political values. they can see them in the current political axis.

the current political access and they cannot relate to them. you have to be a platform to mobilize, energy and vision. and 1400 is aiming to become that platform.